MIDDLESEX COUNTY — For the second time in a month, an appeals court panel has reversed a Family Court judge in Middlesex County who refused to grant a motion by state to try juveniles as adults.

In a unanimous decision released this morning, the judges ruled the trial judge had allowed his personal opinions to override his legal responsibility and returned the case to New Brunswick for a proceeding where the motion will be granted.

The case involves four youths who were involved in a fight at a football game in Sayreville in October 2008. Two weeks after the game, the youths met with the three youths they originally fought with in order to continue the altercation. The other three came to the meeting with a baseball bat and the four juveniles left. When the two sides met up later in the day at a borough apartment complex, one of the four juveniles had armed himself with a shotgun, according to police, and fired it from the car he was in at another car carrying the three combatants. Two were hit, one in the chest and one in the head, Both survived, police said.

The four juveniles, were charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, aggravated assault, armed riot, and several weapons counts. Three of the juveniles were 16 or 17 and one was younger than 16, according to the judges' decision.

The judges said the same legal reasoning applies in this case that applied in the one they ruled on last month where the same judge, Roger Daley, denied a motion by the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office to try two Perth Amboy juveniles as adults for the murder of a man in Woodbridge.

They said under state law, if a juvenile is more than 16 years old and is charged with committing any of the more serious crimes like murder or attempted murder, "waiver to the (adult court) should follow as a matter of course," if the prosecutor makes the motion and shows there is a likelihood the juvenile committed the crime.

"We are constrained to conclude... that the trial court permitted its personal views to affect its legal analysis," the appellate judges said.

The judges returned the case to Family Court for additional proceedings and ordered that a new judge handle the case, not Daley.

David Oakley, an attorney representing one of the juveniles, said "its a shame our law insists on adjudicating juveniles as adults."